The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle
Jenna got me this book as a wedding present – we had just finished watching the Sherlock Holmes series starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Having seen the show before reading any of the original material, it was interesting re-encountering certain elements and plot points.
Sherlock is easy to read because it’s broken into small, bite-sized adventures. There’s not much of a linear progression from case to case, so you could probably read the chapters out of order and still derive the same amount of enjoyment. The fun comes from wondering how on earth Sherlock is going to come up with a solution – there’s only one point where I actually figured out the answer before Sherlock and Watson did.
The chapter about the mysterious letters with pips on them – you’ll get there – is easy to solve because the “big reveal” relies on the reader not knowing something that nearly everyone in modern western society knows about. I guess back in the day it wouldn’t have been knowledge as common as it is now.
Overall, it was a fun and easy read. Choosing to read this would be an elementary decision.
Eragon (Series) - Christopher Paolini
I first read through this series in middle school and high school, and really enjoyed it at the time. Each book is a lot to read through, but what keeps it interesting is the different locations, creatures, and characters you come across. Some people have criticized the books saying that they’re a little too reminiscent of the original Star Wars trilogy in terms of theme and plot points, but I didn’t mind the similarities too much.
In 2021 I re-read just the first book with a student I was tutoring virtually. There were still aspects of the story that I liked, but I had a much more lackluster reaction to it the second time around. The narrator seemed so melodramatic sometimes, and the dialogue between characters felt reminiscent of Star Wars Episode I in the sense that everything was said with intense seriousness and without subtlety. Even so, what kept the book enjoyable was the content; dragons and magic spells were more than enough to keep me engaged.
To be honest, Eragon was not my favourite character. In fact, I found him a little boring at times – mainly because a lot of the time, the cool powers and things that he gets are just handed to him. He has a million cool things to work with to fight the enemy. His cousin Roran, on the other hand, has to fight pretty much the same bad guys but without any supernatural abilities. As a result, he was a lot more interesting to me as a character. So if you decide to give these books a try, definitely keep your eye on Roran. He played a very minor role in the first book, but became a total boss afterward.
I wasn’t crazy about the ending of the series. I felt parts of it were anti-climactic, and I also thought the author tried to worm in some of his worldviews towards the end of the book that I didn’t quite agree with. My disagreement wasn’t the issue – it was more that I felt these perspectives didn’t fit within the context of the book. For example, at the end of the series (this isn’t a spoiler), Eragon tells someone that he doesn’t believe in a higher power. It was a random conversation to have after all the loose ends had already been tied up, but more than that, I was astounded that Eragon of all people would think such a thing. He lives in a world where there’s this mystical ancient language that gives you control over pretty much anything. You can say “tree, grow” and a tree will grow. I’m pretty sure he encountered a dwarf god in the second book. For him to then turn and say “Yeah, that’s all probably normal” was really confusing for me as a reader. I interpreted it as the author trying to shoehorn his two cents’ worth into the book, but I don’t think it worked that well.
The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
This is one of those few books where you can watch the movie and actually get almost the same story. That said, movies always leave some stuff out – in this case, it’s the “yikes the Hunger Games are brutal in terms of just surviving wounds and nature and stuff” that gets minimized in the films. Anyway, I enjoyed this series. The second one was my favourite – seeing the civil war develop and kick off was very exciting. It’s funny, but I was never that crazy about Katniss when reading the books. She wasn’t that likable to me. It wasn’t until I watched the movies that I cared more about her. She seemed like a real jerk in the books – so when Peeta has his whole “woah you’re a jerk” moment in Mockingjay, I was like “FINALLY!”.
People often discuss regarding this book whether Katniss should’ve ended up with Peeta or Gale, and if you ask me, I was always Team Gale. Peeta was a really nice guy, and Katniss was a jerk. So my reasoning was that she didn’t deserve Peeta.
All in all, this was a fun series. The third one was my least favourite – I didn’t like the ending. The second one I think is the best. You can decide for yourself!
Jurassic Park – Michael Crichton
Dinosaurs. What else do you need to get me interested?
This book is noticeably different from the movie, so this isn’t one of those “I saw the movie, I’m all good” books. There’s a lot more science in it, for one thing. I thought I’d get bored by it, but it was actually fairly interesting seeing how Crichton comes up with this way of resurrecting dinosaurs. His other book that I’ve read – “Next” – has a lot of this too and I think he does it well. In terms of other differences, different characters die, so if you liked the movie, you’ll be interested to find out who didn’t originally survive the island.
All in all, I loved this book because it has dinosaurs in it. What’s not to love about dinosaurs? I guess I also thought the theme of “has science gone too far” was fun, but let’s be honest – it’s all about the T-Rex.
I bought this book on my honeymoon with Jenna – I had already read “Jurassic Park”, but I read pretty much the entirety of the book on the honeymoon – sitting by the pool. Man, that was nice.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – Frank Baum
There were a couple things that surprised me about reading this book. Firstly, the Wicked Witch of the West is defeated like halfway through the story. So whereas she's the main villain of the 1939 film, she's more of a temporary inconvenience here. The rest of the story deals with Dorothy’s return to Oz, her companions getting their gifts, and then all of them making one more journey to the Witch of the South in order to figure out how to get home. I can’t say whether the changes they made for the film were better or worse – I like in the movie how the Witch of the West is the big bad guy, but the book doesn’t really work like that, and that’s okay. It’s more like ‘The Odyssey’ in the sense that the ultimate goal is just getting home, not defeating any one particular opponent.
Secondly, the Tin Woodman is an absolute boss. He chops people up left, right, and center in his quest to protect Dorothy. The Lion and the Scarecrow are actually pretty cool too. By the end of the book, they’re all kings over various areas in the land of Oz. I wondered if there was some significance to the fact that the four corners of Oz are ruled by someone different – the Tin Woodman to the West, the Lion to the South, the Scarecrow to the East (I think? Is that where the Emerald City is?), and the Good Witch in the North. The geography of Oz wasn’t super clear.
I also thought this was a perfect book for filmmakers to adapt in 1939. Back then, they were right in that sweet spot between black-and-white and colour films, so the bit where Dorothy comes from black-and-white Kansas to the colourful world of Oz was a neat trick. But what makes it especially cool is that the book really set that up for them perfectly. Chapter One talks all about how grey Kansas was – it uses that exact word like at least six times. Once we get to Oz, everything is brightly coloured and vividly described. How could you NOT adapt this for film by starting in black-and-white and then switching over?
Lastly, I’ll add that the flying monkeys are much more complicated in the book than they were in the movie. In the movie, they're the witless henchmen of the Wicked Witch. Here, they've got an entire story arc of their own, and it'd be misguided to call them evil.
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